Change of Heart
by AngeliaOmen
Summary: Set in those mysterious three years. This is my take on what happened right after Vegeta ascended and returned to Earth. Please Read and Review.


**Disclaimer**: I do not own Dragon Ball Z or any of the Character's they belong to FUNimation and co. Please R&R. As the feedback is greatly appreciated.

**Warning: **Vegeta I know is definitely out of Character, but I feel he could be like this, in time. He's shown his more vulnerable side a couple times in the series, and it's my thought that he would have missed Bulma enough to bare his soul to her, eventually.

His reply had been the usual, cold shoulder and a grunt that relaid his dismissal of the entire argument.

"Well, all right then," she said slowly, "if that's the way you feel, I'll stay away from you. I can live at Capsule Corp, I won't hinder your progress while here. Or I can probably go to ChiChi's for a while; she said I was always -"

She stopped as he moved like quicksilver to the floor besides her, seizing her face and kissed her. His lips were warm and insistent, his kiss intense, if not intimate. Her eyes opened wide with shock, her lashes fluttering against his face. Bulma froze in his grasp; when he released her, unwillingly, she stared at him in utter amazement, then dropped her gaze when she saw the look of desperation on his face.

She rose and crossed the room, running a hand self-consciously over her hair. After a moment she spoke. "You know, it's amazing the lengths people will go to shut me up, Piccolo once threatened to have me stuffed and roasted on a spit and fed to a dinosaur if I -"

"Don't dodge this, Bulma" he said quietly, "It's not like you."

"I'm not dodging," she said, nervously twisting her hands. "I'm just trying to decide which action, his or yours, was the more extreme measure. I mean, he had chosen the marinade."

"Frightening. He was probably serious." said Vegeta, annoyed at the turn of the conversation.

"I know he was serious," Bulma replied, looking away. "What I don't know is if you are."

"Completely."

"Why?" she said, incredulously, "What in blazes was that about? What is it you want?" Vegeta watched her face, a look of disbelief replacing the shock that had been there a moment before.

He sighed and looked up at the ceiling for a moment, fists clenched as indecision warred within for a moment before he relaxed and returned his gaze to her, "I would be your. . . Lover."

The confusion dissolved, and, to his surprise, her face relaxed and she began to smile. "Well, now I understand." she said kindly "You've been in a constant state of adrenalin and training to prepare for these Androids, now that you've achieved the level of Super Saiyan. Vegeta, you're feeling better. It's natural that the things like that would come back as -"

"Don't be stupid!" he said, a bitter ugliness in his voice that stopped her in mid-sentence. "You insult both of us. This is not a recent physical need to satisfy because the pain I've carried is gone. I have wanted this all along. You don't understand me at all."

"No argument here" she replied her anger rising "Now, why might that be? Let's see – First you refuse to tell me anything about what you want, or what you think. Then, when you finally did tell mr what you wanted from me, I believe the roles you outlined were 'Cook', Oh yes and 'Maid'. Please correct me if I'm wrong – did you mention this other one and I just didn't hear you" How stupid of me not to make the connection between these things and 'Lover'.

"Perhaps I should have figured it out when you thought I was a courtesan before, and then had the very bad taste to tell me so? Or maybe I should have realized it when you were telling me to stay away from you, that you didn't trust me, to leave you alone? I don't know how I could have missed it with intimacies like that on a daily basis, Vegeta. That kind of sweet talk usually makes me want to find the nearest cliff and jump."

Unable to contain her fury anymore, she turned away from him and put her clenched fists to her burning forehead. "I can't believe it. You're right, Vegeta. I am stupid. All this time I thought you had learned to like me, at least a little, as a person, not as just another potential conquest. I felt comfortable with you because I thought you didn't just want what they all want, that you were finally learning to trust me. It proves what a fool I am. I should have known it was too much to expect from anyone, let alone a Saiyan Prince."

Vegeta stood in the silence that reigned after she had spoken, examining the interwoven patterns in the carpet on the floor. Then he went to her and stood at her back, watching her shoulders tense as she felt the heat of his body behind her.

Finally he let out a deep, painful sigh, swallowing his pride with great difficulty, "No, Bulma, you aren't the one who's been the fool; I think I have that honor. Don't start doubting your own senses – Surely you must know you were right about my learning to trust you."

Bulma stared at the door to her balcony. "Actually, Vegeta. I think it's safe to say that I know nothing about you, nothing at all."

"Don't say that."

She turned and faced him, her face filled with regret "I'm sorry, it's what I feel."

Vegeta took her by the shoulders carefully, looking directly into her eyes, "How could you possibly doubt that I trust you, Bulma? Look at me. Can you see me?" She nodded slightly. "Well, that makes you the first person in over a year. I could have disappeared altogether when I ascended, but here I stand, a Prince brought to his lowest by a mere human female. Doesn't that tell you something?"

Bulma gave him a gentle smile to ease the desperation she could see in his eyes, "I suppose so, I guess I'm just not sure what."

"I know you don't understand the significance of some of these seemingly simple things, but that is because you do not know the customs of my people, when courting ones mate" He slid his hands down her arms until they held her own, and he spoke even more seriously "If you knew them, you could see that, this Prince has all but given his soul for you."

"I have been training, pushing myself almost to the brink of death and madness itself to forget you. The year I spent in space. . . Out of nowhere, one day there you were, like an unavoidable beacon, and everywhere I went, no matter how much I struggled to put you out of my mind, no matter how far I went to stay away, you were there, in the stars, in the water, in my dreams, in the air around me. I have tried to exorcise you from my blood, Bulma, but it is no use, I can't make you go away."

"And probably the paranoia, the pushing away, the attempts to offend you into hating me and leaving me alone, were not only my way of trying to break free of the hold you have on me, but they were experiments of a sort – testing to see if you were really what you seemed." She stared at him in shocked surprise for a moment before her brows furrowed, a glimmer of anger beginning to show at his words.

He hastened to move on lest her temper take control once more, "It didn't matter though. Can't you see what I am saying? You are the ultimate in everything I, man or Saiyan, could ever desire – you are far too good to be true. So of course I was suspicious of you. I have to be paranoid – it's what has kept me alive since the destruction of my home world."

"And there you were, offering me comfort, seeking to help me, taking me into your heart; it wasn't possible that it was real. So I waited for you to reveal your other nature, to turn on me. I waited and waited. But it never came about, if anything you left yourself far more vulnerable to me than I could ever have been to you."

"And then, slowly, my heart began to wish that it was real. It has been hoping that from the moment I first saw you, but the more sensible parts of me have beaten it back. And finally I couldn't stand it anymore. So, like you said that you have just decided to trust me and live, or die, with the consequences, I just decided the same thing – that I just had to tell you and pray that I wasn't delivering the rest of my soul into Hell's hands."

The silence that followed his words made him shift uneasily, his gaze boring into her own, intense in their challenging stare. "I know the prospect of being loved by a Saiyan is scary one, especially if you know anything about the nature of the royal blood – we do tend to be possessive on a rather grand scale. But it is the less primal aspect of me that loves you most, and it would never stand in the way of your happiness if you do not feel the same and want to leave -"

Bulma shook her head in amazement. "I think you have it a little off. I just can scarcely believe that you'd want someone like me." she said, laughing.

He leaned back against the arm of the sofa, arms crossed, studying her. "Bulma, in case you hadn't noticed, men profess their love for you from little more than a glance, cars run into each other, men stumble into walls, and women stand with their mouths agape. The mere sound of your voice causes those who have been happily wed for thirty years to cry for the sorrow of never having known you. And your smile – your smile warms the coldest hearts, even those that have wandered alone and wounded for decades.

"Yet I suppose I could understand a man not loving you for these things, or wanting you, for they are only physical. But as beautiful as your bodily form is, it's only a shadow of the soul that wears it. How someone could come to know the person that you are and fail to lose his heart to you is, frankly, beyond me. Gods know I lost mine immediately. Whether you understand it or not, believe it or not, Bulma, I do love and want you, and not just for your appearance but for the fact that you have the mind of a scientist, the will of a warrior, and the heart of a little girl who only wishes to be loved in spite of all that she is."His voice broke, and he fell silent.

Vegeta's Saiyan powers had told him that she was crying, but the actual sight of her tears caught him off guard. Her face had never been more beautiful, and his heart now whole and freed from its former pain with the ascension, twisted into tiny knots at the sight of it.

She smiled through her tears, and came and stood before him, looking down at him for perhaps the first time. Her fingers carefully touched the midnight black mane of his hair, brushing the strands gently off his forehead, a look of wonder and discovery on her face. As on that day in the hospital where she first came to care for him, her eyes sparkled as they took in his features. Then she bent down and rested her forehead against his own.

"So, did you come here hoping to heal me to?" she said,closing her eyes.

"Not really." Vegeta answered. "I came intending to tell you the truth about how I feel." His face relaxed, a dark tint entering his eyes as he looked at her, "If the whole truth be told, if you want to know my deepest desires, I came hoping to make love to you, my mate."

Bulma smiled again. "You just did." she said softly. She kissed him gently, and then stepped back and opened her eyes. The look of hope and love and fear on his face broke her heart in that instant. He reached out his hands to her, and she came into his arms and kissed him again.

Vegeta began to feel the control he had over his senses give way. The warmth, the sweetness of her mouth was intoxicating him, he was growing light headed with joy that his mate was accepting him. He pulled her even closer and pressed her fragile body to his, and the burning in his fingers from when he had first let his Saiyan nature sense her cooled and disappeared as he touched her.

Headiest of all was the sensation of being whole again, being without pretense, knowing that she was aware of his feelings and responding to them without fear. And he gave himself over to the ecstasy of holding her, the blood of royals ran in his veins, his Saiyan nature reaching out to sense more fully the woman in his arms.

But as his awareness began to envelope her, Bulma pulled away. She pushed out of his grasp and turned from her, her hands covering her face face. Vegeta could acutely feel each muscle in her body begin to tremble and hot tears fall into her hands; tension knotted her shoulders and her heart began to race. She was crumbling before his eyes.

"I can't. I can't. I can't. Oh, I'm so sorry, I'm sorry, I can't. I can;'t do this. It isn't right; it isn't fair. I can't"

"Fair to whom?" Vegeta asked.

Within him he felt the fabric of the universe tremble. The power that his royal blood held over the forces of nature began to rise. Though no outward sign betrayed the inner battle that was waging in his soul, Vegeta stood at the brink, fighting his own nature and the longing that both parts of it shared. He held as physically still as he could, praying that Bulma would not look at him while his dark nature was dominant, for the guile it would use to enchant her would be evident in his eyes. And though every part of his senses was primed for what the Saiyan in him wanted, it was finally the man who prevailed. His soul longed for her far more than the Saiyan royal blood could ever covet her, and the man understood that her love had to be freely given, not taken, so the darker aspect of his nature was forced back into submission, and the man was left, vulnerable and alone.

"Fair to you," she answered, her voice thick with tears. "You really deserve someone better, someone who has the capacity to love you back. Someone with a heart. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

He reached out and gently caressed her cheek, he traced the trail of a tear. Her eyes closed at his touch, and her head tilted slightly towards his hand. His fingers traced on, down the line of her neck, to her collar and the neckline of her blouse, which he traced down to the hollow of her bosom before stopping. Lightly he rested his hand upon her chest, just above the heart, and felt it pounding.

Slowly she drew open her eyes and looked at him. They stood just so for a moment, neither one moving or breathing. Vegeta felt the racing of her heart beneath his palm and saw the bewildered look on her face as the swarm of conflicting emotions fought within her.

"It feels like you have a heart to me." Vegeta said at last. He watched her, breath held, trembling, vulnerable but not defenseless, and he wanted her. As Vegeta, as the Prince, as man and Saiyan, he wanted her. Not to vanquish or possess, but to cherish. He wanted her, and he waited in fear of her answer. "You do have a heart, Bulma. Why don't you trust what it tells you?"

Her answer was a whisper, "It lies."

"You never lie. No part of you could either."

"Then it has terrible judgement. I believed it before and it couldn't have been more wrong."

"Give it another chance, I thought you believed in taking risks."

His Saiyan hearing caught her soft reply, "It's fragile. I wouldn't survive it being wrong again."

Vegeta removed his hand from her chest and caressed her face again. "Why don't you make me the protector of you heart? I promise I will keep it safe."

The conflict around and within her was making Bulma's head spin. She struggled to hold on to what she believed was reality as her eyes searched his for assurances. They seemed so alien, yet more human than she had ever seen them, and the depth of feeling she could see in them amazed her. _How could I have been so wrong about him?_ She thought, remembering their constant bickering during their travels, the distance at which he held her when she tried to learn more about him, their platonic level of comfort. _I didn't know him at all._

As her mind turned the questions over and over, deep within her she felt a part of her awaken that had stood closed and neglected for many years. At first she was aware of it as a trickle, like finally noticing the sound of a stream that had been flowing slowly in the distance all along. Then it came with more force then she had known the whole world could muster. She was drowning in longing, and hurt, and desire – and something else, something strange and wonderful and long forgotten.

Bulma was lost in a flood of emotion too fast for her thoughts to keep pace, he was left with the heartfelt unpoetic entreaty of a vulnerable woman."Please be what you seem. Please, please don't hurt me."

A strange wetness stung his eyes at her words, "I am. And I never will."

And then she was in his arms again, mingling her tears with his, holding on to him as though their lives depended on it. And then her lips were on his, freely given, and as their kiss deepened into heady darkness the Saiyan gain came forth from where he had held it to sense the wonder that was this woman.

Vegeta unbound her hair and, with eyes closed, sensed every strand as it fell across her shoulders to the middle of her back. He pulled away, cradling her face in his hands, and looked at her. The light sparkled in her eyes as she searched his face. She breathed deeply and caught her breath; her mouth slightly open, but she said nothing.

He kissed her again, and his hands innately went to the places he knew she desired to be touched. She responded in kind, and they moved in a wordless dance, drawing each other free from their outer clothing.

He wrapped her in his arms and held her fast against his chest, both of them celebrating his freedom from pain. Vegeta's lips caressed the nape of her neck; then he turned her gently around and looked into her eyes to find, for the first time his own euphoria reflected back at him.

They embraced once more, slowly moving to the floor as each removed the few remnants of clothing that remained. He leaned over her, pulling away from their embrace for a moment, and let his eyes see for the first time the form his Saiyan senses knew so well. She was luminous, perfect; her skin glowed with a radiance the like of which he never could have imagined.

"You are beautiful." he said, awe making his voice husky, "So beautiful, my mate."

Bulma smiled at him, "I'm glad you think so, and I love you too, my mate" she said, and brushed his face gently with her hand. Vegeta closed his eyes, and took her hand in his a deep rumbling purr building within his chest. He kissed her hand, then the crook of her arm, and then he was lost to her. They made love on the floor of her room in Capsule Corp.

In time he gathered her in his arms and moved to the bed, where their lovemaking continued until the night had passed into the new day.


End file.
